WWE News: WWE Hall Of Famer Shawn Michaels Reveals That He Almost Jumped To WCW
WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels has been a WWF/E man through and through, never once leaving for the competition of WCW or even ECW. While this seems like a cool thing, we all assumed that it’s odd if people like Sting would say they were close to jumping to WWE before, Michaels might have considered jumping at one point too. Michaels confirmed those thoughts this week in an interview with Jim Ross on The Ross Report.
Shawn Michaels spoke about a lot of interesting material, but the one thing that got everyone’s attention was when Michaels claimed that not only was he close to jumping to WCW, he was definitely going to. However, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon stopped it from happening.
Michaels told Ross, “I thought about it. But there’s two things — I went to Vince [McMahon] and said, ‘Let me go. I’m miserable here. I wanna go down and be with my buddies.'”
He then added, “[Vince] said no. I’m under contract under WWE, so I couldn’t. But, there was a time I wanted to go.”
Vince then told Michaels to think of the “bigger picture” as he pointed out how wrestlers were being used in WCW compared to WWE at the time. Vince then pointed out how Michaels’ in-ring work was something he wouldn’t have as much liberty with in WCW as he would in WWE.
Despite this, Michaels wanted out. Michaels then told Ross that Vince continued to speak words of wisdom even when he was bent on leaving.
“He said, ‘You’re a creative guy. Once you get past being angry and it comes to working, you want to do things your way. They won’t let you do that down there, and that’s going to kill you. They’ll [kill] the one thing about this business you enjoy.’ I think he had some validity there.”
Michaels then said that as time went on, he agreed with McMahon. Shawn was obviously going through issues with drugs and alcohol during this period, as we all know by now. Not only did his friends Kevin Nash and Scott Hall jump to WCW, leaving him behind, but he also was being offered a good deal to go to WCW. If Vince didn’t block Michaels from going, Shawn easily could have left and not have become the legend we know today.
Think of the fact that there would be no DX, no Stone Cold/Michaels with Mike Tyson involvement, etc. Michaels became a huge fixture in WWE’s Attitude Era, and without him, arguably WWE would have lost to WCW during the Monday Night Wars. The fact that WCW almost got Michaels before he was able to do some great things is interesting to say the least. Thankfully, Michaels never jumped.
[IMG Credit: WWE.com]
